‘Angels’ in Honky Tonk heaven

In the morning, a wrecking ball will lay waste to an old opry house. Its ghosts, soon to be homeless, are restless.

As these spirits of country vaudeville materialize for one last performance in “The Last of the Honky Tonk Angels,” the show seems, at first, to be developing into a country-western version of the James Goldman-Stephen Sondheim musical “Follies.”

No such luck. Though this presentation, at the Globe Theatre in West Hollywood, delivers a sometimes fascinating re-creation of the yodeling, guitar picking and gospel singing of the country-western past, it is less successful at telling a story.

Several of those involved in the project are familiar from Del Shores’ Southern-flavored comedies. Leslie Jordan, who wrote the script with Ronnie Claire Edwards and performs in the show, was a fan favorite as Brother Boy in the stage and film versions of “Sordid Lives” and as a colorful barfly in “Southern Baptist Sissies.” Some of the other actors also have appeared in Shores’ plays.

The gathering of “Angels” begins as Jess (Robert Stephenson), inheritor of the opry house, takes one last look at the place. The ghosts lock him in and perform their acts to remind him of what will be lost if the building comes down.

Traditional cowboy, bluegrass, zydeco and gospel tunes are presented in a context familiar to anyone who ever caught an episode of “Hee Haw.” These are often quite fun, especially when delivered by a country Mae West known as the Honky Tonk Angel (Susan Lanier) or a fresh-faced, yodeling cowgirl (Alina Tatum). Jordan appears as a self-deprecating country comic who’s a sort of male Minnie Pearl. As always, his coiled energy and instinctive funniness make him a wonder to behold.

The writing keeps getting in the way, however. Jordan and Edwards insist on devising personal histories for the ghosts to relate. Try as he might, director David Galligan hasn’t been able to devise a way to keep these tortured, too-long tales from grinding the show to a halt every time.

-- Daryl H. Miller

“The Last of the Honky Tonk Angels,” Globe Theatre, 1107 N. Kings Road, West Hollywood. No performance today. Otherwise, Fridays and Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 5 p.m. Additional performance July 24, 8 p.m. Ends Aug. 10. $22. (323) 656-9069. Running time: 2 hours, 5 minutes.

*

Comedy careens out of control

A teenage girl with growing pains and a yen for adventure imagines herself in the pages of a gothic romance novel. As the heroine of the steamy book, the girl rises from the depths of squalid poverty in a Louisiana bayou to unimagined riches as a princess in a French palace. Along the way, she meets villains, seducers and true lovers. Oh, did we mention she also becomes a figure skating diva?

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg in “Sneaux!,” the “SINsational Gothic Figure Skating Musical,” book by Tim Garrick, music and lyrics by Lori Scarlett, now in its world premiere at the Matrix. An uneven mess, this show needs a Zamboni.

Kristen Bell plays both Amy, the adolescent romance novel fan, and Sneaux (alternately pronounced “Snow” and “Snox” -- a running gag that cloys), the romance novel heroine who is Amy’s alter ego. Bell, familiar to local audiences from her long-running stint in “Reefer Madness,” does adorable very well, with scrappy as a close second. However, her most fervid efforts, along with those of a talented cast, can’t quite salvage this careening yarn.

The amount of energy and sheer talent that has gone into this ambitious enterprise is mind-boggling. In addition to seasoned and consummately professional cast, Ann Closs-Farley’s costumes are hilariously glitzy, Alan E. Muraoka’s versatile set meets the story’s many challenges, and Rand Ryan’s lighting is typically fine, as is John Zalewski’s sound, despite severe amplification problems on opening night. David Manning’s taut musical direction and Kelly Devine’s minimal but lively choreography are also first-class.

Director Andy Fickman, who also helmed “Reefer,” knows from camp, and he commits fully to the wackiness of this rambling picaresque comedy. But “Sneaux” is camp in concrete, an ossified parody hailing from the nudge-nudge, wink-wink school of naughty humor. Puerile sexual references seldom rise beyond the sophistication of the schoolyard, and although Fickman’s staging contains moments of inspired lunacy, the concentrated silliness ultimately palls.

The acting is so broad, it’s actually daring -- or is that the performers overplaying out of sheer desperation? Whatever the cause, the effect on this overlong and overwrought show is hyperthyroidic and strained -- simply too much, and not enough.

-- F. Kathleen Foley

“Sneaux!” Matrix Theatre, 7657 Melrose Ave., West Hollywood. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 p.m. Ends Aug. 3. $25. (800) 595-4849. Running time: 2 hours, 50 minutes.

*

‘Execution’ dies again on stage

In November 1978, a San Francisco still reeling from the Jonestown massacre was shattered when recently resigned Supervisor Dan White assassinated Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk. This tragedy forms the core of “Execution of Justice,” Emily Mann’s 1986 docudrama now at the Rude Guerrilla Theater in Santa Ana.

Opening with Dianne Feinstein’s press announcement of the murders, “Execution” generally follows White’s trial, addressing the audience as jury. Act 1 climaxes with White’s taped confession; Act 2 continues to the verdict and its aftermath.

Woven throughout are numerous first-person accounts, beginning with a prototypical cop and a gay activist (Mattias Rundgren and Craig Johnson, both excellent), these variegated observations forming subtext by default.

Director Sharyn Case’s staging is intelligent, with invaluable assets in David Jacobi’s lighting and sound designs. The acting is invested, with Mark Craig’s tormented White, Vince Campbell and Paul A. Castellano’s legal eagles, Vivian Vanderwerd’s Gwenn Craig, Aurelio Locsin’s dual psychiatrists and David Colley’s Joseph Freitas especially notable.

Everyone does his or her best, but Mann’s transcript-dominated text is intractable. This dates back to the Broadway production, which I saw from onstage at the Virginia Theatre (where some attendees served their jury duty). Despite an ensemble including Earle Hyman, Donal Donnelly, Peter Friedman, Wesley Snipes, Stanley Tucci, Mary McDonnell and John Spencer (as White), “Execution” then seemed less incisive dramaturgy than a splashy civics lesson. The Colony Theatre’s fine 1987 mounting elicited a similar reaction, and, regrettably, so does this earnest revival.

-- David C. Nichols

“Execution of Justice,” Rude Guerrilla Theater Company, 200 N. Broadway, Santa Ana. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2:30 p.m. Ends July 20. Mature audiences. $15. (714) 547-4688. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes.

*

A little too wacky for its own good

Funny, farfetched, and occasionally effulgent, Greg Owens’ “The Life and Times of Tulsa Lovechild” at the Stella Adler Theatre wavers between ingenuity and excess.

A playwright should avoid convoluting a plot to accommodate a joke, a quirk or a funny situation -- a point that persistently eludes Owens, whose gallery of eccentrics includes Siamese twins, a deranged evangelist, a paranoid former CIA agent, an erstwhile hippie and a statuesque Miss America contestant who gets abducted by her lovelorn boyfriend. In fact, “Tulsa” is peopled with characters so thickly colorful, they threaten to drip off their thinly stretched canvas. The effect is admittedly off the wall, but director Chuck Harper and company have lots of fun dabbling.

Tulsa Lovechild (Stephanie Manglaras), dour heroine of the piece, is a straight woman with a vengeance -- brainy, misanthropic and perpetually pessimistic. The action, set primarily in a roadside motel in Tulsa, Okla., skips from 1968 to the present day. Tulsa was born in the motel in ‘68, just before her hippie mother (Carrie Hegdahl) was abandoned by her lover (Christopher Clarke), a doomed youth headed to Vietnam. In the present, Tulsa is bent on a sad mission to scatter her mother’s ashes at the motel where she was born.

She’s not the only one headed for the motel, which apparently has a magnetic pull for wackos of every stripe. En route, Tulsa has a torrid romance with Ed (Rob Kahn), another straight person in this otherwise semisurreal mix. Manglaras heroically endeavors to make the glum Tulsa engaging, but why Ed falls so madly for her, and why she so tenaciously rejects his suit, seems unmotivated, as are various other story points -- those that aren’t downright baffling, that is. Hugely cheerful and energetic, the play too frequently spills over any recognizable context. Indeed, prolonged staring at Owens’ vivid welter could trigger a migraine.

-- F.K.F.

“The Life and Times of Tulsa Lovechild,” Stella Adler Theatre, 6773 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends July 27. $15-$20. (818) 761-9149. Running time: 2 hours, 25 minutes.

*

A riveting, jazzy onstage presence

Fans of Murray Mednick’s sophistry-laden style may be interested in “G-nome,” now receiving its world premiere at the Powerhouse Theatre in a co-production with Padua Playwrights Productions.

Intimates of the celebrated author of “Mrs. Feuerstein” and “Fedunn” might feel more rewarded still, since “G-nome” finds Mednick onstage essentially playing himself, in a jazz-flavored reverie on heredity.

The title, one of many in-jokes, derives from “gnome,” as the head-miked Mednick describes one of his relatives, perusing old family photographs while the images are projected behind him. Concurrently, actors Christopher Allport and Lynnda Ferguson embody the various corners of Mednick’s memories and mind-set. Hyper-poetic associations ensue, taking in Holocaust survivors Primo Levi and Paul Celan and ending on a note of oblique hope.

Director Guy Zimmerman oversees a smart presentation, with Rand Ryan’s lighting typically superb and Robert Oriol’s music and sound most striking.

Allport and Ferguson are estimable, shifting personas and realities like two scat singers effortlessly riffing around a dominant theme.

This would be Mednick, not an actor but an idiosyncratic modern playwright in love with language. His presence riveted the opening night audience and certainly Mednick’s Jackie-Mason-meets-Spalding-Gray deadpan carries its own wry authority.

Nonetheless, such commitment doesn’t bring coherence to the script, which is a literary conceit struggling to become a realized theatrical statement. The abstractions attempt too many overlaps and the connections to the moments of absurdist self-commentary are impenetrable, suggesting that “G-nome,” though often fascinating, is a personal work-in-progress needing more album pages.

-- D.C.N.

“G-nome,” Powerhouse Theatre, 3116 2nd St., Santa Monica. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m. Ends Aug. 3. Mature audiences. $20. (866) 633-6246. Running time: 1 hour, 20 minutes

*

Characters live in a dream world

If dreams are truly where we process our waking lives, then the snoozing central characters in “The Backwards Aorta” have a lot to sort through before morning yanks them back into the real world.

A first-time play by Danny Lane, this 55-minute comedy breezes along on bright banter and a zippy concept: a dream driven by longing and guilt, in which lovers, family and other surprise guests show up to have their say. It’s Cheez Whiz for the mind in its presentation at the Complex in Hollywood -- tasty but loaded with empty calories.

The stage depicts two households, which meet in the middle with side-by-side beds.

In a messy Los Angeles bachelor pad, Brendan (Lane) is writhing lustily but halfheartedly with a one-night stand named Wesley (Terasa Livingstone). Meanwhile, in an elegant bedroom in Colorado, Keri (Natalie Compagno) can’t seem to connect with Rick (Matt Carmody), even though they’re celebrating their first wedding anniversary.

It turns out that Brendan and Keri recently concluded a brief affair. Neither is quite over it.

After falling asleep, they find themselves sharing a dream -- a chance encounter that may enable them, finally, to resolve their relationship. But first, they must cope with the alarming presence of significant figures in their lives, all seemingly awake (played, in order of appearance, by Louis A. Shapiro, Toni Sawyer, Steven Brown, Deen Richards, T.R. Devitt and Michael Fairman).

The youthful, attractive actors are fun to watch as they zip through Robert D’Avanzo’s antic staging, but Fairman -- portraying God, the ultimate arbiter of this out-of-control dilemma -- is the chief delight. He’s the almighty as Mel Brooks might play the part, a rambunctious old salt who can’t resist playing a few mind games before jovially announcing: “I’m just messin’ with ya, kid.”

-- D.H.M.

“The Backwards Aorta,” Dorie Theatre at the Complex, 6476 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood. No performance today. Otherwise, Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends July 20. $12. (877) 407-7499. Running time: 55 minutes.

*

A comic romp in a Southern swamp

Playwright Nathan Sanders applies Southern eccentricity with a trowel in “The Sugar Bean Sisters,” a refreshingly silly but sometimes self-consciously offbeat regional comedy at Company of Angeles.

The story is pitched well to the left of reality. The isolated Florida swamp where the play is set may be just a few miles from Disney World, but judging by the lethal flying cats and “gobbly monsters” indigenous to the area, it could be on another planet.

Speaking of other planets, Faye Clementine Nettles (Brooke Baumer), who lives in the swamp with her fussy sister, Willie Mae (Becky Meister), is expecting Martians any day now, and she’s got her bags packed for the trip. But first, she’s got some loose ends to tie up -- like murdering Willie Mae for the cash she was awarded in a personal injury suit a few years back. When Videllia Sparks (Jessica Wright), a big-city floozy with a secret, shows up on the doorstep, Faye enlists her help. Why, you ask, does Faye want so much U.S. currency when she’s headed to Mars? Don’t look too hard for motivation or subtext here. You shouldn’t expect structural integrity from a meringue.

Set designer Jack Millard melds the rustic with the kitschy in his terrific set, and lighting designer Patrick Schulze’s subtly wacky effects are also first-rate. Director Hilary Six goes for the funny bone in this well-paced staging, but an uneven cast sometimes falls short of the mark. As Videllia, Wright seems more slack than slack-jawed, Barbara Mealy is only serviceable as a mysterious backwoods snake handler, and Chris Kennedy is downright stiff as the handsome minister Willie Mae adores. The acerbic Baumer is sufficiently appealing, but Meister is the evening’s real comic engine. A Tennessee Williams character with a slapstick edge, her frantic, fluttery old maid neatly balances the pitiful and the hilarious.

-- F.K.F.

“The Sugar Bean Sisters,” Company of Angeles Theater, 2106 Hyperion, Silver Lake. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends July 19. $15. (323) 883-1717. Running time: 2 hours.